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Industry News

Home Builders White Paper: Appraisers are Idiots
As you are likely aware, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) published a whitepaper on housing finance system reform in February of this year. It is 18-pages long, so you can read and digest it in about an hour. All appraisers…
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Industry News Scope Creep Relief Here is Addendum Language shared by appraiser Laurie Richards. MODIFICATIONS TO A SUBMITTED ORIGINAL REPORT: The client or lender must submit in writing (e-mail is preferred) any request for additional information or modification to the appraiser. This information will be retained in the appraiser’s workfile. The appraiser recognizes that…
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Industry News Appraiser off the Hook The suit against appraiser Pamela Crowley for alleged misstatements on her site, MortgageFraudWatchList.org, was dropped by eAppraiseIT in March 2008. The suit was voluntarily dismissed by eAppraiseIT, which means they can open it again at any time. According to the newspaper Florida Today (February 28), in a court filing…
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Industry News Teach Your Clients Well At a recent industry show in Las Vegas (Valuation 2007), one speaker suggested that appraisers facing pressure may try “educating” their lender-clients about the rules, just in case they don’t know. You may be surprised by what is set in stone. One document appraisers use for this purpose is…
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Industry News – Volume 17 States Fighting Back Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann has filed a lawsuit against 10 mortgage firms under the state’s new predatory lending law. The firms are being accused of influencing appraisers to “puff up” their property appraisals above market value. This has resulted in buyers owing more than the property’s…
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Industry News HVCC Update At press time, no changes have been announced regarding the landmark HVCC (Home Valuation Code of Conduct) provision in the Fannie-Cuomo agreement, despite the outcry from thousands of appraisers who believe it will put them out of business- except that the agreement date has pushed back one-three months from the original…
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Industry News Heck No BPOs! Heavy on the minds of appraisers this year is losing work to broker price opinions (BPOs), despite that BPOs for anything other than a real estate listing is illegal in at least 24 states, according to a recent article in the Appraisal Institute’s (AI) weekly newsletter Appraiser News Online. According…
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Industry News HVCC Update Appraiser Talkback Blog and Survey: Only 4 percent (4%) of survey takers so far say they “never” experience unrealistic time pressure from AMCs, (“given the scope of the assignment”). To the follow-up question: “Does the time pressure result in a product that is less reliable for the end user, compared to…
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Industry News HVCC Update- Seeing Light Regulators, lenders and the public are finally getting the message that all is not well with HVCC. Consider FHA’s recent mandate that appraiser fees be customary and reasonable and that there be a clear separation of appraiser and AMC fees (Page **). These requirements speak directly to appraisers’ complaints.…
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Industry News Appraisal Friendly Legislation (Taken from the story Working the System-In a Good Way, first published in Working RE Online News Edition.) Appraisers have some work to do. As you may know, H.R. 4173, which passed the House (See HVCC: Appraiser Last Laugh), has numerous appraisal provisions including the termination of the HVCC (Home…
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